Longing in Dorian Mode

The Benedictus antiphon for Saturday morning lauds offers an eloquent musical commentary on the Latin text. (Listen to it here.) The antiphon is in Dorian mode, which is the “gravest and manliest” of the modes according to Aristotle (Politics 1342b). Indeed, the publican in the back of the temple is humble and virile, upright and kneeling, as it were.

The antiphon (text and score in the image above) from the Vallombrosian Benedictine Oblates monastery breviary begins one note below the tonic (the subtonic), “at the back” of the mode, to fit the text “at the back of the temple”. In fact, until the end of the first line, the melody keeps us uncertain as to where we are in the mode. Only when it rests on the tonic for the last three syllables of publicanus are we sure where our grounding is. At first destabilized, we gain a foothold when we realize that we too identify with the publican.

The first syllable of nolebat ducks back to the subtonic, connecting the “back of the temple” with the “not looking up” that characterizes the posture of the publican. The whole phrase is constructed by contrary movement between the rising and falling flow of the melody and the meaning of the words: a tentative lift on nolebat follows the already mentioned bowing of the head in the first syllable, but returns to the subtonic on oculos. On the words “lift to the heavens” (which was negated by the…